#but even then it would probably sound better crunchy because it wasn't meant to be listened to so cleanly or with expensive audiophile gear

[james-stark-the-writer]

Some music just sounds better crunchy, I'm sorry. Like, whatever the actual sound is that you would hear when something gets like a remaster or whatever like a song from like the 50s or something, will never make up for what your brain thought it sounded like when you first heard it and the crunchiness of the music helps your brain fill in the gaps more and that's why some crunchy music is superior.

[scientested]

music commentary #9 and #10: rochester's theme and ruther's theme

i wish i could have whipped out time's end and time's beginning like i whipped out these two!!!

oh what to say about rochester rutherford... i love him! but that's not what this post is about. this is a music commentary

since i'm going to be linking these on the actual youtube videos now i'm gonna make sure to give some background on the characters if i wasn't doing that already!

the most important thing to understand about these two songs is that they're about the same guy (rochester rutherford), just from different timelines. they're both a scientist dude who invented the first sentient AI in his world, but for ruther, his creations got jealous and overthrew him and through a series of events also took over the entire world. for rochester, the robot uprising Didn't happen, and his timeline developed very differently because of that.

rochester has a cool awesome GIANT city that he's the mayor of! it's full of his own inventions and his face and brand are probably plastered everywhere! ruther meanwhile has been shoved into a nasty workshop with no windows where he's living and working in awful conditions. he's only still around because the robots that have overtaken the world find him useful for repairing themselves if they need it

i wanted to reflect these vibes in both of their theme songs... for rochester, his theme song is much more upbeat and snazzy because he's Got It Good in his timeline. it's also all electronic-y instruments and synths because his design and city are very futuristic. the section that starts at about 50 seconds in also sounds quite silly/ditzy to me, which is reflective of his personality... he's a pretty silly guy. but also take a close look at the tone/art change at the end of the song!! he is very capable of being scary! i will elaborate on the end portions of these songs soon

for ruther, his theme song is a lot Less upbeat and is slower because his situation really sucks. lots of piano because i felt like a real instrument would work better for his song... you could also really read into that and say that a real instrument fits him better because he's more "grounded in reality" than rochester is... the power is VERY much getting to rochester's head... i still put crunchy electronic sounds and instruments into ruther's theme though because i just like them a lot. i suppose you could Also say that both of these songs having crunchy electronic instruments helps cement the connection between them, but it's moreso just my musical style. also at 1:52 i put drums that sound like wooshing steam/smoke just cause i thought it was fitting. in ruther's world smoke is Very prevalent... the robots basically "rediscovered" coal power and found out that "oh shit. the smog that comes from this is bad for humans. we can use this both as fuel AND as a way to inhibit them." this is also why there are smokestacks in the art for the song

ok now i am gonna talk about the end portions of the songs. they are both intended to communicate a negative vibe. like something bad is going on! something that's important to me about these two characters is that even though they Appear to be separated into "good end" and "bad end" versions, they're actually both bad endings. and that's what the section at the end of the song is meant to represent! yes, everything DID go right for rochester... but it also went so so wrong... he's on a power trip... and there's also some terrible secret that he maybe has but i haven't developed his world enough to know that yet... but rochester's timeline IS also a bad ending, basically

What I don't like: once again there is a timing issue with the art change on rochester's theme... it's not as bad as the ones in nightmare in dreamland but of course it still irritates me. also at about 0:45 in ruther's theme song when the piano pauses there's a very brief moment where the pitch shifts to this random discordant note for some reason and it Bothers me a lot and i couldn't fix it

What I like: the crunch!! i like the crunchiness of these songs! i love the crunchy vocal-ish sound effects in rochester's theme especially, those just scratch my brain so right... i also really like way the melody of the piano in ruther's theme flows, it feels very cool. i like both of these songs a lot